Uvalde cops, who stood idle as 21 died, charged with child endangerment

Families could get some justice now that criminal charges have been brought against a pair of Uvalde shooting responders who took over an hour to jump into action.

The police chief of a Uvalde, Texas, school district and an officer who worked at Robb Elementary School have been charged by a Texas grand jury with abandonment and child endangerment after their botched response to a mass shooting at an elementary school left over 20 dead.

Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Police Chief Pete Arredondo and Robb Elementary school resource officer Adrian Gonzales were charged on Thursday, Uvalde District Attorney Christina Mitchell told Uvalde Leader-News, who expected Arredondo to surrender later that day.

The shooting, which devastated the Texas community, killed 19 children and 2 teachers as law enforcement took more than 77 minutes to enter the building where a gunman unloaded an AR-15.

The indictments come despite a controversial city finding that cleared officers of wrongdoing in March, which found that officers acted in “good faith,” contrary to federal and state analyses.

After civil charges against the city came to an end in May, with families settling for a $2 million payout and agreeing to turn their efforts to more responsible parties, officials went after the responsible officers, while a legal rep for the victims' families said they would pursue the Texas Department of Public Safety for its role.

A January Department of Justice report that attributed several deaths to a lack of urgency from law enforcement detailed the “cascading failures of leadership, decision-making, tactics, policy, and training” within the department, as well as individual failures in judgment.